1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to file transfer applications between a user workstation and a web server wherein the workstation is connected to the web through a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), and relates particularly to a system for transferring data files between a user workstation and a web server.
2. Background
The transfer of data files between a web server and a user workstation is done using applications such as a web browser or a file transfer user software. Such a software involves a transfer protocol such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) used when the web browser transfers data files from remote web servers to graphically display the web contents on the monitor of the workstation.
Although HTTP Is adapted for downloading HTML files and the small bit maps displayed with them, it is not designed for transferring large data files. However, another protocol File Transfer Protocol (FTP) can download large files and resume transfer after interruptions. Insofar as transferring files via e-mail attachments is inefficient or impractical when dealing with large documents, FTP is the only open standard solution for efficiently posting new HTML pages onto a web site or sharing graphics laden files.
Many TCP/IP applications can run over Internet, most of them being user server applications. As each connection request is received, a user workstation process and a server process start. There may be several processes running simultaneously on both user workstation and server. To facilitate this process, each application (FTP for example) is assigned a unique address called a port. The related application is bound to this particular port. There are thousands of ports on a server or a user workstation that can be used. A standard port assignment is defined as a framework. For example FTP uses TCP port 21 and HTTP uses TCP port 80. Other values may be used for these applications when necessary.
Today, growing numbers of power users, telecommuters, and corporate Internet managers are unleashing the protocol's potential by using FTP users (file transfer software applications designed for users) to minimize time spent online. In fact, for anyone that even touches the Internet, “FTP user” should be spoken in the same breath as “e-mail” and “browser” when describing efficient desktop needs.
Web browsing or other internal applications are very often used when download of file is running and has impact on the performance of both the application and the file transfer and introduces delay and sometimes error. The main reason is that some resources are shared as the file transfer uses a lot of the internal hardware and software resources.
Therefore, there is a need to reduce the number of hardware and software resources located in the main processing system involved normally in the file download mechanism in order to improve the performance of both the file transfer and the other tasks running in the station.